Zvi Kriple is a vile man who doubles as a racehorse trainer. Here is our post on him from November. Please read to the bottom.
A recent HISA ruling on trainer Zvi Kriple. (I have made slight edits in the interest of brevity and clarity, including substituting Kriple for “covered person” and Royal Honey for “covered horse.”)
“Zvi Kriple was the responsible person for Royal Honey, which was stabled at Belterra Park. On the afternoon of Aug 23, 2025, Royal Honey began to show symptoms of colic, a painful intestinal condition in horses. Without having sought veterinary aid on the 23rd, at 12:30 pm on Aug 24, Kriple made contact with Dr. Timothy Renn to seek veterinary aid. Dr. Renn informed Kriple that he was 100 miles away and was unable to return to the track to attend to the horse. He suggested several alternative veterinarians which might be able to attend to the horse in a timely manner. He further stressed the importance of having the horse seen to and that the condition, left untreated, could lead to a very painful death [for Royal].
“Dr. Renn further testified that his next contact with Kriple was at 8:30 pm on the 24th when he was told by Kriple that the horse still had not been treated by a veterinarian. In his testimony, Dr. Renn quoted another trainer who was on the call as saying that several trainers had volunteered to ship the horse to a nearby vet clinic free of charge but that Kriple refused to take advantage of those offers. Kriple testified that he left the horse unattended at 1:30 am on the 25th and that Royal Honey fell out of its stall at 3:30 am and died what Dr. Renn described would have been a very painful death.
“Autopsy results showed the cause of death was a rupture of Royal Honey’s digestive tract. It is Kriple’s testimony that, despite his best and repeated efforts over the periods of Aug 23 and 24, he was unable to find any veterinarian that would either come to the racetrack to treat the horse or receive the horse at a clinic where it could be seen and treated.
“[B]ased upon the established evidence as set forth above, the Panel has determined that Kriple has violated the rule that prohibits ‘the deprivation of necessary care, sustenance, shelter, or veterinary care’ to a Covered Horse.”
And the “sanctions”? “Kriple’s registration with HISA shall be suspended for a period of two years, commencing on Oct 28, 2025, and continuing through Oct 27, 2027.”
But wait, there’s more. This from the Thoroughbred Daily News: “Kriple was suspended by the CHRB in March of 2010 after being found guilty of animal cruelty charges related to his treatment of a pony in his care. According to a Los Angeles Daily News story dated Jan 4, 2010, Kriple was convicted by a jury of misdemeanor animal cruelty ‘after prosecutors alleged he failed to euthanize or sufficiently treat a horse at the Fairplex racetrack that suffered from a chronic hoof condition.’
“The prosecutor in the case told the Los Angeles Daily News that Kriple had a pattern of ‘extreme negligence when it comes to taking care of horses,’ and cited a 2002 case in which Kriple reportedly failed to properly care for a racehorse that suffered a fractured knee at Los Alamitos.”
Forget about a lousy two-year suspension, this horrible human being should be in jail, and, it goes without saying, should never be allowed control over any domesticated (read: helpless) animal again.
So why am I reminding you of this? Well, the 74-year-old Kriple was the trainer of record for Salty Mama at Mountaineer last night. Yes, last night. How? West Virginia has not signed on to HISA. Now to be clear, this is no endorsement of HISA, for even the appeal (to the FTC) judge said: “If anything, Mr. Kriple’s two-year suspension…seems overly lenient.” (Ohio took it one step further by stripping Kriple of his license, with a Belterra steward saying, “It is my opinion…that Mr. Kriple should never be granted a racing license, of any kind, ever again.”) No, this is more an indictment of the hellhole that is West Virginia horseracing. For shame.
Sorry for the mix-up. In 2010, a judge reduced the 2009 FELONY ANIMAL CRUELTY CONVICTION regarding a horse with laminitis to a misdemeanor to protect Zvi Kriple from being deported back to Switzerland. The case of the horse with colic was in 2025.
It sucks that a judge protected this PERPETRATOR of FELONY ANIMAL CRUELTY from the felony conviction and deportation.
Grady Russell was the attorney for Zvi Kriple in the 2010 felony animal cruelty case. Grady Russell said things in defense of Zvi Kriple’s felonious actions to diminish the significance of Zvi Kriple’s horrificly cruel and inhumane treatment of a racehorse dying of colic.
*Grady Russell said what Zvi Kriple did was “barely a misdemeanor” because he believed that the horse could recover and should not be put down.*
Okay, so Zvi Kriple denies the horse literally dying of colic licensed veterinary care in a timely manner and, obviously, Zvi Kriple is not a veterinarian nor a licensed one, and yet Grady Russell argued that this is barely a misdemeanor because Zvi Kriple, in my words, is an incompetent idiot.
Don’t fall for the trap of demonizing or hating isolated individuals as if they are somehow outliers in this industry.
Hate the game as they say…
My blood is boiling!! What a sad, heartless, disgusting old man this Krip(ll)er is. He truly is a monster amongst the innocent. I will contact Mountaineer and give them a piece (or several) of my mind. This human excrement should have been locked up a long time ago. How depleted of any kind of emotion or empathy can one be to allow a horse to suffer to that extent while watching her and doing nothing??? He needs to spend the rest of his miserable existence far away from any living, breathing innocent being.
You have been following this blog a long time, Wanda. Let your voice be heard: Mountaineer Racing Office: 304-387-8441; contact form.
Jdoe, I get what you’re saying; that the horse racing industry provides the platform for all degrees & levels of abuse, neglect, torture of horses. So-called horsemen can commit the most heinous acts of torturing a horse, actually multiple horses, and the racing and gaming commissions have been given free rein to “police” themselves and everyone in this industry of torturing horses as a business.
Don’t dare say anything bad about the worst of the worst of deceptions committed on the taxpaying public.
Spread a rumor that he spoke badly about the system.
This would get him banned from every racetrack in America.
We can read about this and we can talk about it, but what can we do about it? I mean within the law.
It is beyond outrageous that these racetracks do not honor justice. Any individual who has a ruling against them (whatever the infraction or transgression) must not be allowed to go to another track and race his/her horses. What is the purpose of a ruling at one track if the offender(s) ship out and continue to race horses in a different state? Giving corrupt trainers the privilege to skip away to another state is profane contempt for justice. Evidence that was reviewed and scrupulously considered by accumulated facts and physical evidence tossed into the manure bin by criminal trainers who avoid any punishment at all just by going to driving down the freeway to another state that has no conscience about upholding the judicial opinions of neighboring states.
Shocker. It seems that mountaineer will literally let in the worst of the worst. Prime example, Sipp has been running horses quite a bit as of late. But THIS guy?! He’s literally allowed horses to suffer to death in front of himself. Shame on mountaineer. I worry terribly for Salty Mama.